Yes, I don't think this is day this city will be forgetting anytime soon....

At about 2:00 PM there is a small fire reported in a kiosk at main street downtown Reykjavík. Only a few minutes later it had blazed into a four alarmer, completely destroying two of the oldest houses in Reykjavík, built in the early 1800's.

Club Pravda completely destroyed I've long lost count of how many times I've been in there clubbing over the past decade or so and the building itself had major historical value.
Cafe Opera had recently been renovated and is also completely destroyed, but at least still standing.
The souce of the fire was a ceiling light fixture in the kiosk between the two buildings and thankfully not many people were in those at the time the fire started. Had it happened ten or so hours later, the club, the restaurant and the kiosk would have been PACKED with people as usual on a night out. I walked by there at about five-ish this morning as my friends and I were heading home from our night out and my heart sank. The smell of smoke and burned wood was lingering in the air and the police and fire dept. were monitoring the scene, talking to people through the barricade fence and just generally being good sports.

Those buildings will have to be completely rebuilt and meanwhile downtown Reykjavík is going to look mighty sad

I was having my girls over for a party and we tuned in to the ten o'clock evening news to get news of the fire. In mid broadcast they then tune to downtown Reykjavík but not to the fire but just a little furrther up main street, a hot water main had broke and was flooding the streets...

We're talking 80°c hot water here that was flooding down the street with such force it looked like a river and reached people up to their ankles. Several people had to be taken to hospital for burns on their feet after stepping in it (and by that time in the evening downtown Reykjavík is full of people out drinking and partying) and since the air temp was a little below freezing, the steam from the hot water made it impossible to see anything.

There was major damage to some cars, houses and streets, but they managed to contain it after about an hour.

We were sitting there watching the news just collectively going WTF???? It's like Ragnark in poor downtown Reykjavík, on a major night out....we still decided to go there anyways and found a couple of clubs that were unaffected by either disaster. But THE HELL?